Monday, October 15, 2007

Jo's Top 5 Handy Hints for Voting

1. If you don't want to vote don't send your paper in. Sending in a blank form wastes time for ALL involved.

2. Don't write notes on the voting paper. No one who can do anything about it will read it and I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the ones who do read it DON'T ACTUALLY CARE! You just look like a crazy person. There are however levels of crazy: to be in the lower levels avoid swearing at us and making spelling mistakes.

3. When you vote, don't cross out all the options you don't want. The programs used to read the voting paper can't differentiate between a tick and a cross and its annoying.

4. I know this will come as a shock to some people (actually a lot of people) but when the form asks for you to choose someone by placing one tick in a box that's actually what it means. It doesn't mean tick all the boxes, it doesn't mean number your first 3 preferences and under NO circumstances does it mean number all the boxes in your preference. It just wants one tick. Also if its asking a yes/no question about fluoride or something similar its highly unlikely that its asked you to tick both boxes so DON'T!

5. Combining 2 and 3: Don't write me a note explaining how you have crossed all the options you don't want to avoid your vote being tampered with. To be honest someone would have to be REALLY desperate to try and rig the Greymouth or Horowhenua or maybe Chathem Island local elections. And if by chance they're smart enough to do it they're more than likely smarter than the people who would actually have one it so consider yourself lucky.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Things I've Learnt This Year (Just for you Andrew)

- Surfing is awesome.

- Breaking up is hard...but not as hard as finding out that as part of the separation agreement he gets pretty much all of your friends. No negotiation.

- May is not a good month. Bad things happen in May.

- Getting to the end of your degree is such a good feeling.

- Planning a holiday is ALMOST as much fun as actually going on it.

- How nice it is to find someone who loves you, on good days and bad, even when you're being unreasonable and who will laugh at your jokes (not cos they're funny, just cos you find them funny)

- That I REALLY hate people that come up to you and tell you that you should be smiling. Don't you think that if I felt like smiling I would be?!!!